"First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"...Marriage - Bed

Meredith Karen Laskow, a poet and essayist with "a decent amount" of publication credits, is the Poet Laureate of Placentia (California) Library District www.placentialibrary.org/laureate/poetlaureate.htm. She makes her living as a jewelry artist www.meredithbead.com, and also teaches a free weekly holistic exercise class for breast cancer survivors.

Bed

Two strangers
   share a bed
   still share a life
but stopped looking toward the future
   when the past
became too onerous to bear.
Sometimes arms inch across worn sheets
lightly brush a shoulder
   once warmed by full embrace
but the strangers
   never cross the line in the middle of the bed
leaving broken memories
   to churn in fitful sleep.
They dream, but never of each other.

Bodies and hearts lie in a rut
   indentations in the mattress
where lovers once played.